Scott Ourecky wanted to fly—he never dreamed he'd end up in a secret military space program. The year is 1968: The Cold War is far from over, nuclear annihilation is always only a heartbeat away. America is racing the Soviet Union to land men on the Moon, a war is raging, and a pivotal presidential election looms on the horizon. A child of the early space age, Lieutenant Scott Ourecky joined the Air Force with aspirations of going to flight school. A brilliant engineer, he repeatedly fails the aptitude test to become a pilot but is selected to work on a highly classified military space program—the innocuously named Aerospace Support Project—in which Air Force astronauts are slated to fly missions to intercept and destroy suspect Soviet satellites. When one of the astronauts in training abruptly falls out of the project, Ourecky is asked to fill in for the two-man simulated missions and survival training only, serving with a headstrong and abrasive test pilot, Major Drew Carson, until another astronaut can be assigned. By far the most proficient pilot assigned to the project, Carson has a dangerous propensity to engage in “pick-up” dog fighting sessions while on cross-country training flights. And although Ourecky was only a temporary “place holder,” not destined to fly in space, he soon finds himself much more involved than he ever anticipated—and in deepest peril. Based on a real secret space program, Blue Gemini combines high-altitude action with edge-of-your-seat storytelling to create a modern Cold War thriller. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

US astronauts race to disarm Soviet satellites armed with nuclear weapons in the concluding volume in a thrilling alt-history Cold War-era space trilogy from Mike Jenne. As the Project enters its final phase, Air Force Majors Carson and Ourecky are dispatched on an urgent mission to intercept and investigate a massive orbiting object suspected of harboring nuclear weapons. Emotionally exhausted, with his marriage teetering on the brink, Ourecky reluctantly accepts the assignment. In return for his sacrifice, he is promised an opportunity to go to MIT to pursue the PhD he has long desired. As they draw close to the mysterious satellite and prepare to destroy it, they are confronted with a dark secret that they must carry forever and are forced to contemplate their own mortality and the dire prospect of dying in space. Upon their return to Earth the majors are offered an opportunity almost too good to pass up—flying into orbit yet again, except under considerably different circumstances. Ourecky wrestles with his decision, knowing that choosing to fly will almost certainly result in the end of his marriage, while Carson is finally granted an opportunity to fly in Vietnam. Although he is finally allowed to fulfill his dream of flying in combat, Carson soon discovers that there are some fates worse than death. As the darkest secrets are revealed to astronauts Carson and Ourecky, can they save themselves? Pale Blue is the epic, high-flying conclusion to the Blue Gemini trilogy that will leave you breathless.

This book offers a comprehensive look at the history of space exploration, the technology that makes it possible, and the continued efforts that promise to carry us into the future. It goes through the history of space exploration, from the earliest sub-orbital and orbital missions to today's deep-space probes, to provide a close look at past and present projects, then turns its attention to programs being planned today and to the significance of future exploration. Both the novice and the advanced student of space exploration stand to profit from the author's engaging and insightful discussion.

"In this work, Temple tracks the evolution of space reconnaissance systems from their seeds in the painful lessons of Pearl Harbor through the challenges of today" --book cover.

Discloses the government's role in the Roswell UFO incident, explaining what actually happened and its implications.